Harrowing moment daughter begs dad not to kill himself after he suffocated her terminally ill mum
THIS is the harrowing moment a daughter begged her father not to kill himself just minutes after he'd suffocated her terminally ill mum.
Chilling footage shows Lesley Cawthorne, 49, frantically video-calling her Cyprus-based father David Hunter from her UK home.
He had suffocated her mother - his wife of 52 years - just moments earlier, and was threatening to take his own life.
In the video call, played today in Paphos assize court in Cyprus, Lesley can be heard pleading with her dad.
She said: "Daddy just concentrate on me.
"Daddy forget about everybody else, forget about everything else concentrate on me, not her, not anybody else, just me and you.
Read more on news
"You can't leave me. Daddy please, please, daddy I'm begging you"
Hunter, a former miner from Ashington in Northumberland, wept in court as the video of Lesley screaming for him not to kill himself was shown.
The 75-year-old grandad is accused of the pre-meditated murder of his wife Janice, 74, who had been suffering from terminal leukaemia at their rented villa in Cyprus.
Hunter admits killing Janice in "about ten to 15 minutes" after she "begged" him, but denies it was murder.
Most read in The Sun
His lawyers had tried to get the charge of murder reduced to one of assisted suicide - claiming he acted out of love to end her suffering.
After suffocating her on December 18, 2021, Hunter called his UK-based brother William to confess and tell him he planned to overdose on drugs and alcohol.
William alerted the police, who raced to Lesley’s Norfolk home and asked her to video call her father, which was recorded for evidence.
Hunter says he suffocated his wife because she no longer wanted to live due to the agony caused by her terminal illness. Euthanasia is prohibited by law in Greece.
Today's pre-trial hearing was the first time Hunter had spoken in court since he was remanded in custody.
The father broke down in tears when the prosecution, under cross-examination, showed him a photo of his wife’s lifeless body in their home.
'SHE WAS BEGGING ME'
Hunter refuted claims Janice had struggled when he suffocated her - after prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou read a statement in which he claimed she had.
The statement read: “I was trying to save her by killing her. Janice was resisting and was holding my hands.”
Hunter today insisted: “My wife was just lying there.
“Later on I was told she struggled but I know I would never hurt my wife.
“My hands had no scratches on them.”
Hadjikyrou said Hunter had told cops what he had done on the evening of Janice’s death.
He said: “You told [an officer] ‘my wife has leukaemia and she had too much pain and she asked me to help her not to suffer any more'.
“‘Afterwards I killed her with my hands.’.”
Mr Hadjikyrou also said Hunter had told a nurse he “couldn’t stand to see [Janice] suffer” and that he told police when in hospital: “I killed her to save her.”
Hunter today said he could not remember saying any of those things.
He told the court that when police came to his home in the village of Tremithousa, where he and Janice had retired to, he recalls everything looking “like a dream” after taking “all the drugs in his house”.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
When an ambulance arrived to take him to the hospital, where his stomach was pumped after his attempt to overdose on multiple pills and alcohol, the only thing he could recall was the lights.
His defence argues statements taken between December 18 and 21 - the date when he was psychologically assessed - should be thrown out.
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans for free on 116123.
